I bought the MBP just last week, so it's crashed once (or more) per day, except for today.
I plan to leave the 4GB RAM in for the next 2-3 days. If I don't receive anymore crashes, then I'm going to RMA the RAM. The question is, should I try and get a replacement kit from NewEgg, or just should I just get a flat-out refund?
I'm wondering if I would be better off just picking up some certified Kingston RAM from Amazon. The only catch is, those kits only come in 8GB, with 4GB DIMM's. I will probably never use all 16GB, but more is always better right?
If they send me a new kit for the RMA and it works, I'd be happy.
I have over 200+ GB of free space on my SSD still.
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My machine gets warm, but it wasn't doing anything stressful during the crash. Mostly just several browser tabs open.
I've only bought memory from two companies for Macs. RamJet and OWC. Back when the G4 was the hot processor in the Mac, like the QuickSilver, I was a tech guy working in an ad agency in San Francisco. They had a bunch of G4s with odd memory in them. It was a handful and then some to try to fix Macs that were randomly quitting. THis is System 9 days. I believed unconditionally that the memory was the problem. I was called quit a few things by other techs. Memory is memory is memory. It became so frustrating for me that I put my money where my mouth is. I bought with my own money, memory for most of the higher end users. Replacing all their RAM with RAMJET ram. For my own Dual 2 GHz G5, I chucked Apple's RAM and used RAMJET as well. The random stalls stopped.
Later on I took a job in DVD replication and insisted that the company buy me a Mac. They got me a refurb dual 1.8 GHz G5. And the tech stuck memory right from a PC into that G5. And it too randomly quit. I again bought memory with my own money again from RAMJET. The problems went away.
I know how weird it sounds. But in my experience top quality memory matters. Macs for some reason seem to require the highest quality RAM. Which makes no sense to me because when it comes to PCs, I can throw pretty much any old garbage in them and it will just work. Not so with Macs in my experience.
Right now I have 16 GBs of OWC memory. I like to buy memory from a company that makes 100% of their living on the Mac platform. Crucial in my estimation makes 95% of their money on the PC. I'd be willing to bet that they do no testing on the Mac at all.
I read the spec on that memory you have and it does seem to match the spec of my memory, even though my memory is twice the price. So what's different? I have no idea. What I have is years of experience time and time again proving to me that where you buy it matters. Not just one machine here and there. Many machines over the last ten years. Time and time again it keeps making a difference.
I just wonder why both RAMJET and OWC memory cost twice the price. Why is their warranty lifetime and why have both of these companies managed to stay in business for so long with such long warranties? The answer is, in my opinion, that they sell products that last and work well. It's in their interest to do so.
If you really want 16 GBs, I'd go with OWC or RAMJET. Otherwise I wouldn't do it at all. And I would for sure return that memory.